We all enjoy the first sights of Spring. Especially those of us, who have lived in states with long harsh winters. Spring is a visual reminder of the beauty that comes from new life. From the sprouts emerging out of the dormant ground, to the birds returning home to create and fill their nests. The leaves budding from the barren trees, to the animals giving birth to the next generation. The signs of renewal and resurrection are all around us.
As I watch each of my plants burst through the hard, dead, ground and start to blossom the way that God has designed them to, I am also reminded of the new life He created in me. Before I came to know Christ, I was just like the ground in the winter. Hard and dead to the world. Nothing could bloom or flourish in me. Bitterness and anger kept be from producing life. Trauma had kept me frozen in time. I was just surviving each long harsh day of the elements my environment dealt me.
The very moment I decided to open up and allow God's light to shine deep down into my soul, where a seed had once been planted, is the very moment He started a new life in me. I no longer looked at the world around me, through the dark dirt that once suffocated me. The warmth of the sun, hit my very roots, and I started to grow. I could see the beauty of the process, the way we do with each perfect petal that forms. I appreciated the birds chirping, the bees buzzing, and the crickets singing. I understood the journey it took for them to get to where they are.
Others often reach out to me and tell me something I have shared has given them hope or inspired them to overcome. I haven't always had the ability to see the beauty in the struggle. Honestly most of my life, those stories, kept me bound. The work God started in me all those years ago, has just now started to come to fruition. He's beginning to use the many decades of dormancy, to produce a life that is now able to drops seeds into others soil. Like a plant who returns each Spring, bigger and stronger.
Allowing Him to resurrect, what was once dead in me, has been the greatest decision I have ever made. I no longer had to go through the motions of inhaling and exhaling just to survive each moment. I no longer had to battle the elements of life alone. I had a new life. One where I could push through the circumstances it dealt me, because I knew it was producing growth. And because He made ALL things new in me, I am able to share with others, that He will do the same for them.
It's up to us whether we choose to allow Him to nourish us, or remain as we are, trapped in our adversities. Choose life. A new life in Christ. Let Him resurrect that tiny little seed inside. And let us all witness the beauty He creates in you.
